2019 1-26 Championship, Day 8, Pilots Meeting Video Transcriptions
2019 1-26 Championship, Day 8, Pilots’ Meeting Video Transcriptions
Ridge Morland:
I'm going to take, in light of today, I'm going to try to keep my emotions in check, we're going to do something a little, slightly different that has nothing to do with the contest and I'll piss off some people here. I don't care at this point. All right.
I'm a retired naval flight officer, 26 years. And the son of a... I'm proud of my father who served for 21 years from '43 to 1964. He was a naval aviator. There's a couple of people here that I'm gonna be able to relate this to a little better. Today, June 6th, is the 75th anniversary of D-Day. We are here, arguably, we get to be in this room because of what happened in D-Day, before that, and afterwards.
Some people may not pay attention to D-Day. I come from a military family; I do pay attention. That was driven home to me 13 years ago when I went to the American Military Cemetery at Normandy. And you go walk those roads, on that cliff above the beach right there in Normandy, there's 9387 grave sites there. They represent people that never made it more than a handful of miles from that grave site right there. They never left there. They never came home.
When you walk that thing, if you can keep your emotions in check, you're tougher than I was when I walked through there, and I am right now. 9387 of them are right there, from a Brigadier General to a Buck Private. They sacrificed, and we're here, arguably, because of what they did.
Go there, and see that sometime. Travel to Pierre's country and see it. He's not in his head over there, you have to see it and understand it. And you'll see the sacrifice in front of you. It is different than going to Arlington, or your local national cemetery because you're there, where this happened. June 6th, 1944, 75 years ago, 9387 of them.
That's only the American ones, countless ones, all right, that we're addressing. That was World War II. Tomorrow, June 7th, marks the 50th anniversary of the death of First Lieutenant Sharon Lane of Canton, Ohio. She is the only American military woman to die from combat action in Vietnam.
She was a nurse; she was 25 years old. 06:05 in the morning, she's finishing up her night shift, working through the night, taking care of our people, and maybe more, maybe there were folks from other countries there. 06:05 in the morning, enemy rocket comes through her ward, explodes, she dies instantly from shrapnel to her neck. They didn't find her for a while because she was buried in the debris.
25 years old, she sacrificed, in her era, and we are here, enjoying the soaring contest arguably because of what she did, and what those 9000 did. So, remember the people on this day, for what they did in World War II, and what Sharon Lane gave up 50 years ago tomorrow. Remember all that. All right. I made it. I made it through.
There are people in here that served in the military, or your parents did. And I said parents, mother, father, arguably either way. All right. Let's try to pull this out now, let's go to the really positive side. Young lady (Sinead Nichols), you get a cup this morning. Here's one of the two volunteers that are receiving a 126 championships cup, now. Everybody should be thanking her for running the line.
Sinead Nichols:
It is a great pleasure to meet all of you, and it's so cool to be able to have the opportunity to just kind of be part of this. I will hopefully be seeing you all again in Arkansas or Kansas, wherever that is. I'll figure it out at some point, I don't know.
Ridge Moreland:
All right. Number two. Number two volunteer here. Leonard come here. This is volunteerism at its best. They're not here to help in a cockpit, they're here on the ground to slave away. Like her, she'd do anything, this gentleman leaves me in the dust. And he's the guy that you want to thank for whatever he may have done. If he helped you put your wings back on. Did he go retrieve you? Did he answer your question? He watched that retrieve desk and more. Helped clean up. He does everything there is and then beyond that. His attitude is, "What needs to be done?" So, he gets a 1-26 cup.
I've had a great time here too. I've enjoyed meeting all of you. I'm sorry I can't get everybody's name right, I've really kind of worked hard at that but bear with me. It's been a great experience and I hope to start flying one year soon. Thank you.
While we're giving out awards, we didn't have the contest day yesterday so Dan Nezgoba donated a whole case of hooch. So I had one extra and wanted to share a story some of us die hard newbies were sitting yesterday, Daniel knows where I'm going, we were sitting yesterday by that air stream trailer right next to the terminal building, and we were sitting there and we all had a beer in our right hand, and Daniel came driving up at about 3 o'clock, and it was impromptu.
Daniel came driving up and we all showed our beer to him and we pointed at the rows of queues that were just running as far as the south can go. Daniel had his window open, he hung his head, he says, "Yeah, dammit, I know, I know, I'm gonna be eating some crow. Screw you guys!"
So, we got to thinking about that and we said well, no, Daniel has done a superb job, eating the whole crow was just kind of out of line. But we did think an appropriate amount was this crow feather!
You know they say chocolate is good for a little bit of heartache, some folks turn to chocolate, other folks turn to whiskey for heartache, so we have a bottle of premium, chocolate-infused whiskey. And it's not for just, it's just in appreciation because he's done a fantastic job for us.
Daniel Sazhin:
Well, looking at the way it looked like last morning, and what we were seeing, and we do it all over again. So, but don't worry, you know, for the flying that we missed yesterday, the little bit that we missed, you're going to make up for it today and then some. We're going to have a really spectacular day.
Weather
Bill Hill reviewed SkySight for the day and it indicated that conditions would be favorable for long flights with cloud bases that may break 18,000’. Winds from the northwest at 10 kts at 12,000 were reported during the day. The thermals did have a hard time staying together and large clouds never formed over the valley.
Task
Daniel Sazhin:
First launch 11:45, day 4 in the grid sheet. We had our safety talk; we had our weather talk. Same deal with contest ops as always we're going to launch off at two six.
And here's going to be the task. Today's a distance task. Four hours. North to Zorro Ranch (1 mile radius), south to Glorieta (10 mile radius), then Clines Corner (5 mile radius) and Cedarvale (15 mile radius). If you do the whole thing, you get a bonus at the end? And you can come back from any of these turn points.
Chuck Lohre
513-260-9025
Google Drive for task and info
http://tinyurl.com/126Champs
SSA Facebook page for videos of meetings and grid interviews
https://www.facebook.com/SoaringSocietyofAmerica/